Captain Albion Clemens and The Future that Never Was: A Steampunk Novel! (Lands Beyond Book 1) (34 page)

“No chance in hell-“

“But this time, you, Samuel J. Clemens, are about to knowingly commit genocide! You are going to kill people, Sam!”

“I did what I did because they ain’t people! My
crew
are people! They never
was
people!”

Sam’s hoarse voice cracked, something it had never, ever done. It was such a shock, Albion’s feet slipped from their perch atop a crate packed full of potatoes.

He had been listening intently, leaning forward, and now he tumbled over the edge and onto the boxes of glass trinkets, breaking open the top of one with an attractive clatter. The sound drew the pair of older men toward the pile of cargo, and it was hard enough comprehending their looks of horror, let alone what Captain Sam said next.

“You stay off of there, Albion!” The reprimand didn’t nearly reach Albion in time. As the youth struggled to get up, he kicked over one of the boxes of trinkets. The necklaces and bracelets rattled prettily enough, but when toppled, it was hard to miss both Uncle Cid and Captain Sam jumping agilely out of the way, as if the hard little pebbles were bits of flaming lava.

“Cover ye face! For God’s sake, cover ye face!” Sam’s voice cut through the patter of rolling marbles.

Albion did as he was told, automatically, slowly. His gaze was fixed on the thing hidden underneath the baubles, packed in sweet bundles of dry flowers to mask the scent. It had been done meticulously, but nothing could hide those mottled fingers, sticking up out of the rainbow of glass as if reaching for a body to pull into the grave.

Later, Cid explained it in a way a five-year-old could understand. The beads were for the natives, who hadn’t completely given over the land to the settlers. They were holding fast enough to their ways not to trade land for the settlers’ steam looms or photogram machines.

Albion had long ago read the treatise in Sam’s jumble of books, on the Indians of the American Northeast, who had perished from a European gift of blankets riddled with smallpox.

It seemed to Albion their Captain Samuel was just the type of man who was not afraid of using a proven military strategy- very Sun Tsu.

“It’s to be mutiny,” Auntie insisted.
Her hair was still gold. “We have to try and convince him not to go through with the job.”

“It’s not mutiny if we’re saving him from himself,” Cid argued. Auntie’s was a lone voice, without Cockney Alex
, but a charismatic one. The few others in the room were aeronauts for hire, passing through on a job, and cared little either way.

Albion sat in on the conversation, knowing his voice would be bulled over, hushed, count for nothing. It had been like this in the Walled City, when his blood father had made all the decisions for the family. A loud voice mattered more than a sound mind, was the lesson he taught Albion. It came as a surprise when Uncle Cid turned to Albion, and implored on him for his opinion.

“So the vote’s tied. We need someone to break the stalemate,” Cid said, shaking Albion out of his reverie. “One: we overpower Sam and lock him in the brig, dump those blasted glass beads into the outback to bake. He’s like to put up a fight, and he knows the ship inside and out. I wouldn’t put it past him to have some secret way of escape, and a stash of copper jackets. Two,” here, Cid took a deep, reluctant breath. “We go through with Sam’s plan, stay silent to the last. Without this job, the ship’s dead in the sky anyway. No fuel, no water, no money to escape the outback. What’s it to be, young Clemens?”

“Why me?” Albion’s voice came shaking and confused.

“Why? You bear his name. Of all of us, you’re the least likely to be killed,” Auntie said gently. “He loves you, kiddo.”

“He’ll kill me in an instant,” Albion argued. He was looking into one of Auntie’s teapots, hanging in her galley, seeing his yellow reflection. “You heard him. None of us are people, not to him. At
best I was only a dog. An unimportant, little dog.”

“Lad, no,” Cid sighed. “Listen to me. You
heard a conversation meant only for me. I’ve known Sam for years, lad. Those words? Hot air. The man’s dying from regret, he wants to convince himself so’s he’ll stop feeling guilty. If he believed it, he would have moved on long ago.”

“You mean he wants to pretend he didn’t kill those airmen, so he’ll kill some more?”

“Stop butchering my words, lad. He’s doing it for his crew, too. It’s slim pickings here in the outback, and more than likely the natives won’t accept the trinkets.”

“But what if they take the peace offering?” Auntie reproached. “Then the plague will take every last one of them. We have to have the Captain change his mind, or eventually he’ll do it again.”

“But what do I do? I don’t want to mutiny against the Captain! What if he kills one of us? What if we kill him?” The galley seemed to swim, and Albion realized he was about to cry. He, Albion Clemens, was about to cry in front of a gang of hardened pirates and airmen.

Cid and Auntie
and everyone else looked at each other, but nobody had an answer coming. They were all clutching their arms nervously, Auntie a chef’s knife, Cid his massive wrench, the others with pistols and cutlasses.

They were as lost as he- and suddenly, the thought of those confident, cussing folks all turning to him for an answer shifted something inside Albion. Like a toggle being tripped, the boy who would be Albion was gone- and the Manchu Marauder was born.

“We do not have to mutiny, well, not really,” Albion said, haltingly at first, but gaining strength as he went. “If you would all help me… we might be able to do it. It wouldn’t be pretty, but like the
Kyushu Maru
… he would have a chance. We would all have a chance.”

“I’m listening, lad,” Cid said, and he was as good as his word, one ear turned intently towards Albion.

As they neared the outpost, Cid altered the navigational instruments slightly, just enough to change their heading by a few degrees. Albion knew how, after all, Sam had taught him well. Cid pretended to make peace with the Captain, reluctantly presenting him with a hundred-year old whiskey (“You blasted kid! I was saving it for… well, an emergency. Bloody logical, all you Chinese…”). The Captain’s weakness for whisky was legendary, and deep in moral quandary, he had no reason to suspect Cid Tanner. When he was passed out, the crew simply dumped him out the cargo hatch, with a bag of provisions. They would burn the accursed load of trinkets, saving what sundry seemed safe to consume. Hopefully, the crew would be able to gather fuel and water on Branston pickle alone.

Albion was the one who physically rolled the Captain out of the hold. Everyone else was too scared to do it, convinced Sam would bolt awake and shank the man who set boot on Sam’s back. They had the right of it- two inches from the
edge, a drunken hand snaked out and latched on to the bulkhead.

“Why? What?” Sam said, clearly still inebriated.

“Because,” Albion answered, more lucid than he had ever been, “because we are people, not dogs. Because everyone deserves a chance to live different, even you.” And he kicked Captain Sam out of the
Huckleberry.

13: Survive

             
Rosa Marija reached the control apparatus under Westminster when the explosion ripped through the air. Even across the metropolitan span of the
Nidhogg
, Rosa felt the iron tang of the Red Special. It seemed somehow magnified in the environs of Mordemere’s ship, like standing in a pond while someone belly-flopped into it.

             
“Albion…” Rosa murmured, knowing full well there wasn’t a soul to hear her. Suddenly she wished Cezette Louissaint were there, ready with some soothing clarity only available from those on the other side of puberty.

             
The helmswoman deftly completed the sequence necessary to separate the Houses of Parliament from the
Nidhogg
. Under her deft fingers and dirigible-savvy wit, it was a simple matter. What was harder was the temptation to abandon her comrades and assist her momentarily deranged Captain. It would be very easy to grasp the rudimentary controls before her and pilot the whole of Westminster over Red Square. At the very least, she would be able to distract the pirate Captains into halting their gunfire.

             
Impulsive to a fault, Rosa hid a core of steadfast responsibility, ever since what happened with Nessie Drake. It was her fault Nessie’s heart had been broken. Rosa had chosen the company of airmen instead of watching over her friend.

Rosa checked her tiny pocket watch, in a rosette hung around her neck, and set the tab timer for the appropriate interval: two minutes. Then she stepped deftly out of the cabin and made for the ring of gantry catwalks separating Europe’s landmarks from the airship proper. She would help Blair and Hargreaves, and go to the Core.

              As she emerged onto the surface, in sight of Big Ben and the wizard’s spire of the
Nidhogg
, she felt another change in the air around her. Even without her tarot deck, she might have guessed at the reading: Ten of Airs, an impending danger. Perhaps even Ragnarok, the calamity.

             
When the doors of the Abbey, not fifty yards from her, burst open, and a horde of hooded figures disgorged from its depths in an interminable flood, Rosa was only a little bit surprised.

             
“Oh my balls!” Rosa cried, before turning and running for life.

             
The catwalks weren’t very direct, taking right angles and winding detours, frustrating Rosa’s attempts to reach the spire. In another moment, she was glad of them. The horde was flooding into the gantries at such a pace, they tumbled over the tight turns and into the sky below.

When she scrambled through a turn,
Rosa was able to look more closely: no, not Clankers, like she first thought. This wasn’t military order, they were just swarming blindly, perhaps sensing the impending change to their environs.

These things might have been Clankers at one point or another, b
ut Rosa caught the look of blue ankles, limps, and uneven arms struggling to balance into an efficient run.

A scent of rotted flesh like bad eggs and sour meat drifted to her nose, along with a feeling of infinite despair.

Even as the thought occurred to her, the gantry beneath her feet gave a rumble, sort of settling on its pivots. Rosa turned and gaped; a gap was appearing between the gantries and the gaslit streets of Westminster. Massive pistons rose from their mounts, clamps unbuckled, locks unwound with whirring precision.

Perhaps some of the climate had been preserved when the place had been stolen, but Rosa fancied there was a line of mist separating the nest of Big Ben from its moorings. She hoped Cid had been right, that they would float gently to Earth like Mordemere intended.

Meanwhile, the horde was still coming, jumping the gap and falling when they failed. They were quickly filling the catwalks with a grimy fury, like typhoon sewage into the streets. Rosa got up from where she had fallen, and ran once more. They were getting far too close for her comfort, and now she was near enough to make out similar hordes from the other separating landmarks. She found herself surrounded by drifting islands in the ocean of sky.

Dimly, Rosa’s
helmswoman sense of steam workings let her spot the arrangement of valves, wheels, and other machinery running alongside. She began to reach out, tripping this fixture and that lever, releasing scalding hot vapor in plumes.

It made the horde rear back in pain, but like any good mob, they simply trampled their scorched fellows beneath mismatched feet and kept on coming.

The steam seemed to make the smell worse. She would have to find some structure to hide in, but hadn’t they released all of those into the sky?

She realized now there had never been any choice in the matter. If she had stayed to pilot Westminster in some attempt to help Albion, she would have been overrun by these creatures, torn limb from limb. She would have to have faith in her Captain, and look out for herself. Being a pirate now meant what it usually did: survival.

              There was only one place to run: deeper into the center of the
Nidhogg
, where Jonah Moore had hidden his guilty Core.

14: Repentance

             
In the aftermath of Moore’s last bullet, Albion was left huddled on the ground, clutching his Red Special in shock. Victoria lay loyally near his left hand, heavy with six slugs. It had been a gift from Captain Samuel.

What had he done? The fact he had expended all of Jonah Moore’s crystals did not fully register with him yet. He couldn’t get the image of the Clanker who held a weapon to Elric Blair’s head, and how the Red had torn the man limb from metal limb. All that had been left was a greasy red blot on the stones.

It had been a mistake. Albion was caught up in the firefight, slipping, dodging. He had a faint thought of trying to get close enough to deck the old codger, make him see sense. Albion, perhaps, reached too far into his bag of tricks, and tumbled headlong into cover. Scrabbling for his weapons, he recovered the wrong one. When his fumbling fingers registered the weight of the Red Special, the index had already pulled the trigger.

Albion got up, slowly. He shivered at the cold seeping through his vest, the buttons blistering the skin at a touch. The mist hadn’t yet cleared from the spot where Captain Samuel had been standing. Albion suddenly wished it never would.

“Gah…” Albion moaned. His leg struck something as he had been thrown backward, and now he was having trouble walking. It was an ominous sign.

He could hear something stirring not too far from the Red Square, probably in the other
monuments nearby.

It was a mechanical whirring, a steamy hiss probably indicative of his crew at work. There was also a rustling, clinking sound faint on the wind: Clankers? It meant he did not have much time.

The mist cleared. There was no grease spot. There wasn’t even a body. A long streak of charred pavement led to a hole in Vasily’s Cathedral, exposing an ornate chapel within. Beside the streak was only a rucksack, partially opened. Inside lay a package wrapped in some dirty rags. Albion hobbled his way over, looking around for signs of Captain Samuel. There were none.

“Just like you, to run when you’re outmatched. I had to learn it from someone…” Albion muttered. Although, he reflected, Albion couldn’t actually remember the last time he had done so. He always wanted to, but he hadn’t, not even from Inspector Hargreaves’ insistence on this hare-brained quest. Somewhere deep inside he had parted from his adopted father’s pattern, and struck out on his own. He might be a pirate, but it was good to know he was also his own man.

He had never aimed to kill, Albion knew, not through the whole firefight. Neither had Captain Samuel. Rosa would have sighed at the senselessness of it.

Albion picked up the rucksack, and took out the package. Inside, of course, was a foot-long sliver of what looked to be a very pale amethyst. There was also a box of cigars, a flat glass bottle, and some other bits and bobs Albion couldn’t be bothered to look at. He took a swig out of the bottle, and the taste of wood-aged bourbon hit him as hard in the memories as it did his liver. At least he was warmer.

He took a hard look now, at the spire not too far in the distance. The bridge out of the square wasn’t too far away. Even on his complaining knee, Albion could make it easily. He wondered about his crew; would he find them there, in the
Nidhogg
, finishing the job, or had they already abandoned him when they saw him fighting Captain Sam?

He realized he had spent months with
Blair and Hargreaves, longer with Rosa, and he couldn’t really tell what they would do.

Everything seemed much clearer now, and though Albion Clemens knew why, he didn’t want to put it into words. It was enough he knew, that was all.

He reached the bridge. The gantries all about him were humming with activity, bolts rising slowly out of mountings, pistons suddenly popping from their seats. It was the ship preparing to release Red Square back over Europe. Albion hobbled over the heavy-duty seals between the gantries, and sat down on a pylon to watch the Square fall away before his feet.

The man with the strange wooden shoes was waiting not too far away. Albion barely even noticed before he was knocked down, and the rucksack taken from him. His enemy was moving slowly, and he wasn’t carrying any weapons. The flamboyant robes were torn and burned, and the hand rummaging in the sack looked like it was in some kind of black glove. Then the man in the broken mask had the Leviathan crystal in his hand.

“Hell,” said Clemens. “You can have it. It will save me the trouble of carrying it with me to Mordemere, to stick it up his corn hole. Just leave the bourbon.”

Wood Shoes looked about to argue, but decided against it. He took the gift horse and bounded away sprightly, though through the cracked demon’s mask it looked like he was in some considerable pain. Albion noted the face was an Oriental, like himself.

Albion got up, still mourning his lost coat, and threw on the rucksack again.

There was an airman’s jacket in there, with a fur lining, still smelling of cigar smoke and cheap cologne. It hit him mid-abdomen. A little warmer, Albion hobbled the last lengths of catwalks, emerging onto the landing of the spire. He heard a sort of caterwauling through the mist, as of a lynch mob scenting blood, but he couldn’t help his crew now. There was an open gate right before him, and inside, a spiraling stair.

“I hate bloody stairs,” Albion said, but he began to climb them anyway. Thankfully, they went up only a little way before terminating at a row of closets. It was an elevator, Albion knew, from the gated walls and the cables visibly attached to the pulley on top. They were rare enough even in the more prosperous buildings, in the great cities of the world. He hoped Mordemere had not booby-trapped it somehow. There was one gate closed, and a closet missing, presumably already ascending towards Mordemere.

Albion got in, and yanked the gilded lever towards the up direction. Everything was labeled clearly, and when the elevator began to move, it did so silently, without a puff of steam or other sign of an engine.

The floors drifted past the gate one by one. Albion caught sight of elaborate laboratories, shining with apparatus. There were lavish libraries, filled with oiled leather tomes, and heartrendingly beautiful parlors filled with comfortable chairs and bar nooks. It was an unending parade of things Mordemere possessed, yet the fact the ship existed all around them meant the alchemist was unsatisfied with such paltry trappings.

Give greed a face, and it would be the man who wished to live forever.

Albion slunk down on the floor of the elevator. He wasn’t particularly tired, or depressed. It was a conscious decision. He would wait, and rest, and when the elevator reached Valima Mordemere, he would be ready to do what needed to be done, with what remained to him: six faithful slugs, sitting pretty in Victoria’s cylinder.